Last year’s race was ended early on account of incredibly dangerous deluge, but early-week weather reports suggest clear skies for racing. Barber has another event schedule for Friday, so teams won’t have paddock access until Friday evening at 5 p.m. and inspections will start after that. Sunday’s racing will also feature a quiet hour with no racing. In all, 77 teams have signed up and you can see all of them on the unofficial entry list here, but read on after the jump for even more words.

CLASS C

This begins our class-by-class preview of the weekend’s LeMons racing. We’ll start as we usually do with the most interesting class, Class C, with cars that are least likely to be considered racecars by sane human beings. Few of these cars were ever intended to be driven in a spirited manner and the few that were did so a half century ago.

Classes are, of course, decided at the track the day before the race begins by Judge Phil and the esteemed members of the LeMons Supreme Court. My word on this is only speculative and based on a sickening amount of time following this series. As such, it is prone to error, like many of my decisions in life.

And with that in mind, allow me to present the likely Class C competitors in the form of (really awful) haiku.

#833 Morrows Racing A (“Pontiac XP833.5 Banshee,” some of it possibly pictured above)

CLASS B

The middle class in LeMons is a little like orphans. Some are fairly competent endurance racers inhibited by lack of speed while others are fast cars that drink fuel and break often. To recap: Orphans are slow and competent or fast and drink gasoline. [Author’s note: I should probably have worked on my metaphors more and schemed on building a snow fort in my yard less.]

Anyway, this is also sometimes the providence of cars that have won their way out of Class C with a victory or two there. Regardless of how they got there, this tends to be a very diverse and interesting class.

#32 Speedycop A (Honda Accord-ion) – Crapcan racing’s resident madman continues the quest for the final LeMons trophy he has yet to win. The automatic Accordion has come painfully close before; could this be the very race where Speedycop nails down history no one else had ever even thought about before?

#97 and #130 Knoxvegas Lowballers (Ford Contour SVT and Geo Metro/Duratec V6) – The Lowballers’ V6 Metro remains an quick-but-unreliable steed while their Contour is undoubtedly the best LeMon running on the Mondeo platform.

#421 Fireball Racing (Ford Escort) – My old racing steed now begins its second season of racing. My old LeMons co-captain and Hooniverse writer Alan Cesar will reunite with it this weekend.

#101 Byte Marks Racing (Ford Escort, above) – Another Escort from Chicagoland; this should be a good battle of Ford Escorts.

#66 Purple Hays (Ford Mustang, above) – These poor souls have lingered around LeMons for years with their four-cylinder Mustang. Looks better than factory.

#77 Shark Bait Racing (Datsun 280Z) – The Deities of Bad Luck repeatedly strike this Z team, but we appreciate shark-themed cars, even if they lack the incredible resemblance to a feeding whale shark of a late 1960s Thunderbird.

#420 PBR (Subaru Outback) – This remains one of the more reliable Subarus in LeMons, which means I’ve probably just cursed them.

#8 Junk Dynasty (Ford Mustang) – This Mustang’s backfire nearly melted my face when it first went through inspection last year at Gingerman. Turns out that firing order matters. They’ve since sorted the car a bit, but it teeters on the brink of terrible, as most LeMons pony cars do.

CLASS A/OVERALL

This at least brings us to Class A for the cars with actual potential to win the race. These cars also vary in terms of power and weight with the heavy hitters, as we’ll see, but the top competitors have all been very successful in the Midwest races and they’ll be hoping to translate that to a win in the South. On a strategy note, the lack of Friday testing should give a slight advantage to teams who ran Barber last year since the ostensibly know the track better.

Additionally, the quiet hour on Sunday breaks the day of racing up nicely so that a team in position to win after Saturday can run 2-1/2 hour stints with only one in-race fuel stop. This gives a huge advantage over teams with less fuel capacity and/or efficiency. Strategy: It even exists in the cheapest of endurance racing.

Noticeably absent from this race are last year’s winners, the RC Spiders Mercedes 190E Cosworth, and six-time LeMons winners Hong Norrth Racing in their Mazda MX-3. With only two previous winners in the field, that leaves the very likely chance for a first-time overall winner.

#732 and #132 Speedycop (Honda Civic, above, and Toyota MR2) – A year ago, Speedycop brought this B20-swapped Civic to Barber to work out its kinks. Strangely enough, it worked; the car won at Gingerman Raceway last Easter. The MR2 is hopelessly bad and truly wretched if it rains.

#36 Save the Ta-Tas Racing (Chevy Camaro) – To date, the Ta-Tas have the only Camaro to ever win a race. This one now sports the Vortec V8 from a truck. I don’t know if that will make it any better; the car usually fries the clutch, the brakes, or both.

#262 Vermont Bert One (Volvo 262C Bertone Coupe) – The country-crossing Bert One lands at Barber after racing in four far-flung states last year. They scored several Top 10s in 2014 and could finally get a win for a Redblock-powered 200 Series.

#44 Landshark (Acura Integra) – These guys missed a win at Road America by less than two seconds. They’re prone to late-race runs up the standings because they can drive very long stints, making up their time while the other teams change drivers.

#335 Road Warrior Racing (BMW E30, above) – The Mad Max-themed E30 is one of the longest-running LeMons cars. And it still looks badass. They’re also entirely capable of winning.

#67 TARP Racing Shenanigans (BMW E36) – TARP’s Cookie Monster Warlord-themed convertible E36 was spectacular enough on its own at its debut, but the TARP team have been around and know how to put together a race.

#929 Come Monday Motorsports (Porsche 928) – This 928 nearly made it an unheard-of Porsche 1-2 at Sebring last summer before the car’s V8 puked all over the track in the final 30 minutes. Yeah, they’ll do that.

#197 Frankenstein Motorworks (Toyota MR2) – The car—the work of mad crapcan genius Marc Labranche—has the 270-horsepower V6 out of a Toyota Sienna stuffed in it. It also runs Labranche’s own prototype ECM; it will probably get docked a few penalty laps, but it’s mostly a test bed for said ECM rather than a real try at winning. Most importantly, this will be one of the fastest cars on the track along with the aforementioned Camaro and Porsche 928.

#511 Inglorious Bastards (Ford Thunderbird) – After many long years and thousands of highway towing miles, the Bastards at last won Class B in their crappy Thunderbird last fall.

#212 Silver Bullets (Nissan 240SX) – This is routinely one of the fastest cars in the Southern LeMons races, including running the fastest lap at Barber last year.

#157 and #751 Terminally Confused (Honda Civic and Honda CRX) – Every race, this team insists they’re hopeless. And every race, they put a car in the Top 10 or have both running in the Top 10 for long stretches of time. More importantly, this team has developed a reputation around the paddock for being all-around good people, which is really the whole goshdarn point of LeMons.

#797 White Trash Racing (Dodge Neon) – This team believe so wholeheartedly that they belong in Class B that they make the most half-assed arguments at every race and always end up in Class A instead. Again, the important thing is that they have a good sense of humor and cook some mean ribs.

You can follow the race via live timing from Specialty Timing, who run LeMons timing & scoring. For those so inclined, here is some perhaps-relevant information.

4 Benzes across 3(hopefully 2) classes. I can't wait and can only pray for an MB ABC win, but that's not going to happen. If we get the Planet Express shoved into B there is no way we'll come close to winning.

Also, the Silver Bullets and the 928 Estate are scary fast. I remember seeing the 928 coming out of 14 at CMP when I was halfway down the straight and he still beat me to turn 1. The Silver Bullets at Barber were on the same level as the Turbo Schnitzel XR4ti in both speed and blow uppityness. I want to see that drag race.

My Clarkson fro looks fantastic in that photo

skitter

I read what you wrote.
Mercedes fixed with citrus,
I see what you did.